Recommend some documentaries...

I second murderball.... great stuff

maxed out
new york doll (you'll think it won't be that good, but there is a surprise in it.... it is good)
 
I'm seconding "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

I'm also thirding "Murderball."

Those are perhaps my top two documentaries ever.
 
Swept Away: Jon Dee Graham. It is a fantastic look into Jon Dee Graham and his life, his impact on music and more importantly, his relationship with his children. There is one scene on his back porch, talking about sometimes wanting to disappear.....It is worth it for just that scene.
 
Hoop Dreams
Hands on a Hard Body
Go Tigers!--a movie about one season of Massillon, Ohio football
Paris is Burning--a movie about the drag balls in NYC during the 80s
 
Two other great Errol Morris documentaries:

Fast, Cheap, and ouf of Control-surreal
The Thin Blue Line-about an incident in Dallas. Messed up.
 
The Up! Series is the most fascinating series of documentaries I have ever seen.

The Link

The Up Series consists of a series of documentary films that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the explicit assumption that each child's social class predetermines their future. Every seven years, the director, Michael Apted, films new material from as many of the fourteen as he can get to participate. The latest film, 49 Up, was released in September 2005; filming for the next instalment in the series, 56 Up, is expected in late 2011 or early 2012.
 
"The Memphis Belle" - the famed B-17 bomber & its missions (this is not the later Hollywood movie)

"Triumph of the Will" - pre WW 2 Nazi propaganda

"Riding the Rails" - depression-era hobos w/ a Woody Guthrie soundtrack

"Hearts of Darkness" - behind the scenes of filming "Apocalypse Now"

"Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" - abt Scorcese, Coppola, Altman, Lucas, Spielberg

"Crumb" - the unusual Zap comix cartoonist and his more unusual family

the "Victory at Sea" series was a 1950's CBS program, but is great on dvd
 
A great one is...

Deep Water (sailing race around the world using footage from two contestants)

More good ones...

Nobody Knows (doc like - japanese children left parentless)

Little Dieter Learns to Fly (herzog again; amazing life lived by this guy)


from the music bin...

DiG! (dandy warhols and brianjonestown massacre...worthy without being a fan)

Be Here to Love Me (tvz, the scenes with Guy Clark are hilarious)

We Jam Econo (minutemen)

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Although not technically a doc, 24 hr party people (about the manchester music scene) is hilarious.
 
Lots of great suggestions already on this thread so I'll plug a friend of mine's work.

Keven McAlester made a film about Roky Erickson called "You're Gonna Miss Me" that is really great. He will (hopefully) have his next film out shortly.
 
I've heard good things about Dig!, which covers the rivalry/friendship between The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols.
 
Since this thread keeps going, I'll add "Dust to Glory" which is also by Dan Brown. It follows a couple drivers doing the Baja 1000 one year, and is mixed in with interview footage that tells it's histroy as well as Dan Brown's typical corny dialog (which he got from his father and Endless Summer). I really enjoyed it (because I'm into off-roading) and after watching it it made me want to do Baja SO badly.
 
By the way, 49 Up, the latest in the 7 Up series released in 2006 has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Pretty good!

Again, i can't recommend this doc enough.
 
Cocaine Cowboys is a badass doc on the 80's miami/columbia drug cartel stuff and the inception of the 'war on drugs".


*** also, HBO9 is showing "Resolved" at 7:00 tonight.
 
i just watched the one about baltimore inner city schools (don't recall title).

NOW, I am watching Fists of Freedom, about the Mexico City civil rights protest acts by the athletes. it is also very good.
 
"The Sorrow and the Pity" is a great documentary; a devastating account of French collaboration during the German occupation of WW2. It's long (around 4 hours) and it helps if you already have some background about the Occupation.

Even longer is "Shoah" which is strictly a series of interviews of death camp (mainly Treblinka and Auschwitz) survivors and troops stationed there.

Did anyone mention "Gimme Shelter?" I watched it a few months ago for the first time in years, and forgot how powerful it is.

I agree with the recommendations for "Murderball", "King of Kong", "Street Fight", "Thin Blue Line", and "Monterey Pop"
 
"Rites of Autumn". It is a 5 disc series on the history, memorable games, great players, legendary coaches of college football. It is done very much like Ken Burns' "Baseball" series. Gives me chills.
 
I didn't read through this whole thread, but I saw a bunch that I would recommend highly.

I don't know if it was mentioned yet, but "Hoop Dreams" was great (maybe a bit dated, though).
 
There have been a lot of great suggestions on this and I'm not going to repeat or second anything that I already noticed was mentioned, but some others:

Dancing Outlaw- I originally saw this in a double feature at the Alamo with Okie Noodling- hilarious look at a crazy W VA family.

Just about anything by Ken Burns is good but I really liked Unforgivable Blackness about boxer Jack Johnson
 
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